Poppet Has Left the Building

I have way too much fun making custom Poppets. Thanks, Wendy!!!

Please Forgive My Human

Because sometimes we need all the help we can get. I don't know about you, but this one makes me feel a little better about being me.

On Etsy.

Busy shipping day yesterday. Busy studio day today. Busy holding down a sofa tonight. I hope, I hope, I hope.

Lawn Morals

I'm not a fan of pulling weeds. It's not about the work. It's about the emotions. I can't pull dandelions without thinking of Ray Bradbury. I can't pull a weed without appreciating that it struggled to push up through the desert rocks. I can't pull a weed without being aware that it has a name, a genus, a species and a purpose.

Is it simply unfortunate geography for weeds, to grow in this neighborhood that frowns upon them? Or more precisely, that frowns upon humans with weeds between their rocks?

I tried that explanation with Orion. That nothing was wrong with the plants, but that they grew in the wrong place. He says that makes no sense. He is right.

How does one explain lawn morals to a Poppet?

Possibly I should put up tiny tombstones with names of the plants. My neighbors would likely frown upon that too, but I would've made some sort of point, at least to myself.



Possibly ONE DAY I can live somewhere else, that is mine, where weeds can have their season.



The birthday party went extremely well. I must get permission from parents before posting more photos. But it was a long day of play and bouncing and cake. And me hoarse from pretending to be the alien haunting the bounce house. I am a child inside. I will always be willing to humiliate myself for giggles. If I'm smart.


My hand is tired. My sculpting hand is my 'main' hand, is my signing hand too. It was great to see Larry, though we were signing in completely different rooms and had not nearly enough time.

I sat for hours with Peter Beagle and we talked and listened and discovered a something that we need to make together. The something actually sort of presented itself, very much like magic.
I'm very happy to be working with him again. Of course I am.

He is Peter S. Beagle.
And it is my great honor.




Copies of Strange Light, Strange Roads and Strange Birds are available in our ebay store.

quick note

It's been a week of jumping hurdles. Off to the book show. Taking camera. Taking Poppets. Will come back with photos.

and books.

Have a great Sunday.

waking hours

I've now been awake for twenty one hours. Too many, since I got little sleep the night before. I spent most of today waiting at the hospital while Spencer had surgery on his spine. This one was a bit complicated, but was managed by stealing a bit of his hipbone. The worst of the uncertainty is passed. Now for recovery and all that goes with.
The waiting was not totally stressful as long as I stayed busy. I finished writing an article I've been working on for some weeks. I read two issues of Make from cover to cover. I sort of watched bits of Law and Order that seemed to be on every channel in one form or another and I made a weird sort of menagerie of latex gloves. I thought the nurse would scold me---she was that stern sort of nurse who might---but she didn't, unless I count the (possibly imagined) subtle rolling of her eyes.

I'm a little sad that this year we won't actually be celebrating St. Paddy's Day. Sometimes things just don't fall that way. The week is way too full for cooking cabbage or drinking, or even Aubrey's annual St. Paddy's day dive into the pool.
But we agreed to be satisfied with what is. And what is now is that we made it through a difficult day. Orion is sleeping soundly and very soon, I will be too.

Have a drink for me. Éirinn go brách!

g'night

weekend

Poppets are already traveling free. Your artist will be spending hours in her favorite corner of the sofa
in pajamas,
with tea,
writing.
Silly Humans!

g'night

Strange and other news

Larry Niven and I will be at the Book Fair in Mission Hills to sign copies of the newly released Strange Light.



The cover looks like this. The inside has my art and well, Larry Niven.

The Poppets who live on my desk now have their own Twitter account.
Poppets see things differently. Poppets have ideas. Poppets want to help you create. Ask questions or just say hello. Be patient though. Even with five of them, typing can be a little slow. It's a big, big keyboard.

Our Etsy Shop celebrates its one-year anniversary on Saturday the 13th. All Poppets will travel free from the 13th through the 19th. New Poppets and art and $10 gas masks too. Poppets want gas masks.
Wow. A year. Thank you!
Windy for sure. This tree is very old. For as long as I've lived here, it had one huge dead major limb and one living major limb. Guess which one fell...



Inspiring windy Poppets, for sure.

"Not My Favorite Windy Day"


Ok. Now I'm officially pooped. g'night

Today is very windy, with fallen trees, rolling trash bins and little bits flying all around. There are moments---looking out of the studio's south window---when I could be Dorothy, dream-flying in black and white. I'm sculpting a poppet caught in a windstorm, which is one of those parts of work that doesn't feel like work at all.



Last week I finished an edition of 'Resonant Kiss." The finished sculpture looks like this.


I really liked this particular image of the work-in-progress. Possibly it's the negative black space around them. Perhaps the slight out-of-focus makes it more sinister. Maybe I'm full of crap. I don't know. I like it and thought you might too.


This weekend I watched the documentary "Addicted to Plastic." The experience for me was a bit of a roller coaster of 'we're totally fucked' and 'we're starting to figure things out.' It was somewhat balanced, so I came away from it feeling informed, but not panicked.

Then I did a little old-fashioned channel surfing. After about an hour, I immediately went to work on a new Poppet. It made me feel a little better, but not great for Poppet.
A little gas mask made up for it. (care tip: Poppets don't like more than thirty minutes of television at a time)
Then I decided to make gas masks for other Poppets too, which is good, because gas masks are small and require only small tools. I can sculpt them on a tray in my lap, with my feet up, in my pajamas, with a nice hot toddy by the fire.

...while watching documentaries. So time flew and I made quite a number of masks. Other Poppets could have them too.

When I was done, I decided to watch some television. But I've seen all four episodes of Survivors (the 2008 series), so I put a little Irish in my toddy, and got a book.

Watchful Shrubs

Eventually, the front walk will deter all but the hardiest of Watchtower Society members. For those, there's always the trapdoor.

watching

It's been an intense week in the studio. Come to think of it, it's been an intense week all around. Nothing big, just mountains of small things. Feels a bit like balancing on a ball, solving a Rubik's Cube and avoiding an irate bear all at the same time.
Or something like that.

Art was accomplished. Got another of the Poppet Pictures finished




and a Poppet to celebrate Equinox.

Possibly you're feeling like spring will never arrive. I understand---it's how I feel at the end of summer hell here in the desert. Spring is coming, the way cooler air whispers through just when I think it's abandoned us once and for all at the end of summer.

This is our spring. It won't last long, so we must make the most of it. The gazebo is slowly looking more like the greenhouse it's becoming. The tomato seeds we started with are hardy plants now, some with flowers, all who will need protection from the wilting sun soon enough.

The tortie continues her watch. I think of her as MUT (My Untouchable Tortie.) I had some of Ben's wonderful homemade pate'. I shared--- a little--- from about a foot away.
She talked. A little. Too much onion?

No sudden moves.

Tomorrow is Saturday. I dare not make a list. My list will find me out of doors, looking for birds and rabbits, not so unlike the furry little sister whose company I seek and yet, likely alien in her eyes.

Cats and Dragons

Today was a very long day in the studio. The kind of day when the work isn't difficult, but plentiful. Hours of the nuts and bolts and physical labor that make the pictures in my head become objects I can hold.



But evening came, just as always. Orion and I walked through our neighborhood to the wash, which is wild with rabbits, coyotes and roadrunners. Oh my.

There were little black birds on the wires, like notes on a staff and the sky was filled with cats and dragons and other strange creatures. The sun's light suddenly turned Orion's hair to gold. I took a photo of him, for him.
For later, so that he can see the street as it was when he was a little boy.
It will be like time travel.

The walk was an excellent idea.

And now, I'm too tired to worry or think or plan. Quiet now, and sleep.

Mostly Pictures

Occasionally, the Poppet Who Lives On My Desk wants to
get out.
So, we took it out.We found some kids along the way,
who had teeth in various stages of
coming in and going out. These kids are from Palm Springs, which is a riot of gardens this time of year.
It can be easy to forget, among the flowers and palms and swimming pools, that we live in a desert.
And that a desert is a harsh place of brightest brights and darkest darks.
We don't forget.

Crows won't let us.
Still, it seemed a good idea to go out where landscaping and cell phone service don't reach.
To get a bit of the natural desert.

Past the fields of big white flowers that spin.


And even past the dinosaurs. Those sneaky dinosaurs.

So now they were three amigos, explorers, braving sudden winds and dust devils.

Desert flora that offers little shade and hides little bitey and stingy things.


Past strange beardy men in weird hats and icy cold rapids.

And unexpected spots of low gravity.
Whole palettes of grays.
And horizons that want to show up in art.


We returned in the afternoon to vibrant color and warmer temperatures. Still wanting to be outside, we explored our own yard. We discovered an astonishingly beautiful and sculptural old tree disguised as an ancient and imposing old shrub. Once I started trimming, I didn't stop until the light was nearly gone. I've been working on it for a week since, about thirty minutes a day. That tree wanted to come out.
Clearing the growth was a bit like fast bonsai, like slow sculpting, and like being on a treasure hunt.
Inside the tree disguised as a shrub for some thirty or so years, there were things hidden. A sea shell, a very rusted but not broken light bulb, half of a bamboo flute, about a dozen sleepy beetles and the best of all, a very well-preserved rodent skeleton that also wants to show up in art.
I found a niche for this little garden fairy. I sculpted it a long time ago in the Big Blue House in Georgia, sometime before I started The Dark Caravan and after my very first art show exhibit, which was at a Dragon Con, in 1991. Probably about the same time the rat found itself in a great deal of trouble in the tree that was already hidden inside a shrub.


I got some frames just because they were square. I like squares. . I didn't know what I'd do with them exactly. I sometimes find things like that and put them away, knowing that they belong to the work, but not knowing exactly how. I find authors and artists like that too. People I connect with and want to find the right project for. Sometimes it takes years for the project to make itself known. This would be a strain on my patience, if I didn't do other things in between. But I do. Because there are so many objects and people and ideas milling around, and there's always art wanting to be made.




g'night

Special Foppet for Charity

Hello everyone, Ravyn here with a little shameless Foppet promotion :-)

Things have been quiet for me on the Foppet front, mainly cause i'm still working on my house in between working on work. (Um and almost destroying my right shoulder in the process, ouch!) But a friend of mine asked for my help, and it has lead to a special Foppet.

Some of you familiar with the podcasting community have probably already heard of the sudden death of Tee Morris' wife Natalie, leaving behind Tee and their 5-year-old daughter Serena (a.k.a "Sonic Boom"). My own involvement with the podcasting community goes back to 2005, when i chaired my first Balticon (39), and my good friend Paul Fischer suggested we do a Balticon Podcast. It's since been my pleasure to get to know such a warm and generous group of people.

Which brings me back to Foppet. An auction is going on right now to raise money for Sonic Boom's future. All the details can be found here on The Boom Effect site. During my talk with Paul, the idea for a SONIC BOOM Foppet solidified in my head, and soon after that, i started painting her.

When i mentioned my idea to Paul, he said it would have to be LOUD to be a SONIC BOOM. i told him, it just has to be loudly PAINTED....

So here she is, a flaming fireball of a Foppet:



For some reason the photo makes the bright yellow look more like mustard, but it really is a bright glowy yellow. SONIC BOOM FOPPET's listing gives a few more details, including the current proxy bid which stands at a mere $20. SONIC BOOM is one of a very few OOAK Foppets released into the wild without a matching Poppet companion (though i may be updating the listing to add a classic Little Red Poppet to it, courtesy of Lisa).

The auction ends this Saturday, so please check it out!

Poppets Play

Finnegin Beginnegin, Nobody Owens and Phoenix Stories are for Humans

There once was a man named Michael Finnegan,

He grew whiskers on his chinnegan,

Shaved them off and they grew in ag'in,

Poor old Michael Finnegan (begin ag'in)


Did you sing that song as a child? I did.

I sang it to myself once more as I twisted wire for armature, to begin again the process of sculpting the piece I accidentally destroyed.

It's a good song, that.

Stephen King writes that Hell is repetition.
He's right too. Still, repetition seems part of human life.
We wash the dishes, go to work, brush our teeth, wake up in a cold sweat.


Recreating destroyed work is a different sort of repetition. It carries the burden of loss.

Both kinds of repetition bring experience. Any twelve-year-old practicing scales, no matter how reluctantly, will become skilled eventually. Same as coping with setbacks.


So. The sculpture that was destroyed was this one. It wasn't so much the hours and effort lost, or that it was to be the next The Graveyard Book sculpture.
Sure, that was loss, but the truth is,
I loved her.

I glance at The Poppet Who Lives on My Desk...
Right. Silly human.

Real, after all, is relative.

Sid commented about losing written work. Over the years I've lost both written work and art. Some through error, some through no fault of my own( &^$(*&@!! computers!) and some in spectacular fashion such that demonstration would require stunt doubles. Each experience was unique. Each work, whether words on a computer screen or a work of art, carries whatever life we've ascribed to it. After all, in everything we create, there we are.

Possibly this experience---loss and recreation---as Syd and Melissa P commented---the Phoenix--possibly it's part of the human curriculum. Is that idea at all comforting? Tell me your stories about losing and recreating work. The more brains, the closer we get to figuring things out.

As Poppets are fond of saying:

"How many humans does it take to answer a single question?"

"All of them."




There's still snow on the mountains, but spring has arrived. When it comes, you just know. If the weather hasn't reached you yet, not to worry, it's coming. Equinox soon.

g'night

Ups and Downs and Sideways too

It's amazing how quickly things can go wrong. Yesterday I accidentally destroyed a little piece I'd worked on for about six hours. It wasn't so much the time in, but that I loved the little creature. I even kissed her when I put her into the oven I've used to fire originals for years. Then I pushed the wrong button and went away.

sigh.

When I returned, she was a blackened husk and I cried for a bit, like a baby.


The discipline to let it go and move on has been hard won, for sure.





So. Moving on:

I want to share this exercise with you. One of the difficult aspects of sculpting is to get both sides of a symmetrical work to match. In the case of the piece I destroyed, and am now recreating, the symmetry is for the face, and wings.
I've done no research on this, but in my own experience (this is my disclaimer) this writing exercise helps. It's not a hand thing---it's a brain thing. And I believe it works.

You can do it anytime you have a doodling opportunity. Even if you're not an artist, it may exercise a part of your brain that might be a little out of shape. Write anything, then write its shadow. Have fun.

I did have a bit of success this week, in finishing this mirror box. It was on my 'long overdue' project list, and is for friends and collectors, Roland and Robert, aka guardianalien. I thank them both deeply for their outstanding patience.

It's titled "The Magnificent and Marvelous Doctor Crow, and is truly bigger inside than out.


















































Another small success---the tortie came within two feet of me today. She very nearly took a bit of chicken from my hand. But only nearly.

Sigh. My kitty I cannot touch.


I've bought bulbs---hyacinth and tulips and daffodils.

I'm going to spend the afternoon outside, with creatures not human and likely smarter.

Have a good Saturday.

Snow elsewhere. Twittering for real in the desert.

Adrienne sent me this photo of Poppet and snow.
I like snow, though some of you east of me might not share that sentiment right now.

It was more like Spring here today. Birds are everywhere. So for those of you in the cold, here's a bit of warmth, compliments of Spencer, who got some nice shots of the little fellows.

Tomorrow we will all be busy gathering Poppets, patting their heads, wrapping them up and sending them on new adventures.

I should probably tell you that if you want something from the shop for Valentines, tomorrow (Tuesday) is the last day to be sure it will arrive in time.






This weekend was sunny. I spent some time outdoors. The hummingbirds are lively and many these days. We don't have a good count, but it looks like between 12 and 20 at our feeders every day. The Mystery Tortie still visits us daily. Yesterday morning it was still rainy, so I moved the dish to the patio. I held my coffee and pretended to gaze out over the mountains, paying no attention. Pretty soon there was much munching. I think she may be a girl. Not entirely sure yet.



I got some real work done on Poppet Stories. Mostly the delay has been a time thing, but too, I've let my own questions about Poppets hang me up. Recently I've accepted that I'll never know the nine-billion names of Poppet. And that I don't need to. That no matter when the book gets written, it will still be written only with what I know about these creatures so far.
If I continue writing on Sunday afternoons, then Sunday afternoons will become time for writing, and that will be a good thing.





No school today, so Monday seemed like a second Sunday.

Hope the rest of your week is inspiring.